Montana Women Homesteaders: A Field of One's Own

"My Relatives in Iowa City, Iowa thought I was mentally deranged when I announced to them in 1908 I was going to take my little boy and move to Montana, " wrote homesteader Mattie T. Cramer in "Success of a Lone Woman Homesteader." "They could not understand how a 'lone woman' could expect to get along out in that wild country...."

In Montana Women Homesteaders: A Field of One's Own, Sarah Carter introduces the voices and images of women, including Mattie T. Cramer, who filed on 160- or 320-acre homestead plots in Montana. Single, widowed, divorced, or deserted, women varied in ages, educational levels, and ethnic backgrounds, but many "proved up" on their homesteads. In published accounts, scrapbooks, personal reminiscences, and photographs, the women recorded their remarkable journeys.

See Grace Binks' meticulous homestead scrapbpok, with photographs of her homestead shack's "kitchen comer" and "parlor corner." Read the work of Pearl Danniel, who field on her own homestead in the 1920s but was starving by the 1930s in a "land of phantoms." See Evelyn Cameron's brilliant glass-plate photographs of Mary Whaley, sitting proudly next to the sacks of grain harvested from her land.

1115479272
Montana Women Homesteaders: A Field of One's Own

"My Relatives in Iowa City, Iowa thought I was mentally deranged when I announced to them in 1908 I was going to take my little boy and move to Montana, " wrote homesteader Mattie T. Cramer in "Success of a Lone Woman Homesteader." "They could not understand how a 'lone woman' could expect to get along out in that wild country...."

In Montana Women Homesteaders: A Field of One's Own, Sarah Carter introduces the voices and images of women, including Mattie T. Cramer, who filed on 160- or 320-acre homestead plots in Montana. Single, widowed, divorced, or deserted, women varied in ages, educational levels, and ethnic backgrounds, but many "proved up" on their homesteads. In published accounts, scrapbooks, personal reminiscences, and photographs, the women recorded their remarkable journeys.

See Grace Binks' meticulous homestead scrapbpok, with photographs of her homestead shack's "kitchen comer" and "parlor corner." Read the work of Pearl Danniel, who field on her own homestead in the 1920s but was starving by the 1930s in a "land of phantoms." See Evelyn Cameron's brilliant glass-plate photographs of Mary Whaley, sitting proudly next to the sacks of grain harvested from her land.

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Montana Women Homesteaders: A Field of One's Own

Montana Women Homesteaders: A Field of One's Own

by Sarah Carter
Montana Women Homesteaders: A Field of One's Own

Montana Women Homesteaders: A Field of One's Own

by Sarah Carter

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Overview

"My Relatives in Iowa City, Iowa thought I was mentally deranged when I announced to them in 1908 I was going to take my little boy and move to Montana, " wrote homesteader Mattie T. Cramer in "Success of a Lone Woman Homesteader." "They could not understand how a 'lone woman' could expect to get along out in that wild country...."

In Montana Women Homesteaders: A Field of One's Own, Sarah Carter introduces the voices and images of women, including Mattie T. Cramer, who filed on 160- or 320-acre homestead plots in Montana. Single, widowed, divorced, or deserted, women varied in ages, educational levels, and ethnic backgrounds, but many "proved up" on their homesteads. In published accounts, scrapbooks, personal reminiscences, and photographs, the women recorded their remarkable journeys.

See Grace Binks' meticulous homestead scrapbpok, with photographs of her homestead shack's "kitchen comer" and "parlor corner." Read the work of Pearl Danniel, who field on her own homestead in the 1920s but was starving by the 1930s in a "land of phantoms." See Evelyn Cameron's brilliant glass-plate photographs of Mary Whaley, sitting proudly next to the sacks of grain harvested from her land.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781560374497
Publisher: Farcountry Press
Publication date: 09/28/2009
Pages: 296
Sales rank: 600,575
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction Montana's Solo Women Homesteaders 15

Chapter 1 A Lone Woman Homesteader Mattie T. Cramer 39

Chapter 2 A Shack Near Big Sandy Adelia Elizabeth Hawkins Sturm Glover 63

Chapter 3 "In My Own Home At Last" Metta M. Loomis 83

Chapter 4 The Sumatra Adventure Grace Binks Ina Dana Margaret Majors 93

Chapter 5 Lone Tree, Montana; Nan ("Nannie") Pritchard Francis 113

Chapter 6 Crossing the Border for Land Laura Etta Smalley Bangs 127

Chapter 7 Evelyn Cameron Photographs of Janet ("Jennie") Williams and Other Montana Women Homesteaders 137

Chapter 8 A Homestead Near the Little Crooked; Mia ("May") Anderson Vontver 145

Chapter 9 2 Letters, 5 Feet of Snow: The Mildred Belle Hunt Diary 163

Chapter 10 Dead, Plucky, or Proved Up: Women Homesteaders in the Montana Press 187

Chapter 11 "A Sure-Enough Pioneer" Ada Maud Melville Shaw 205

Chapter 12 A Homestead Near Smokey Butte Catharine Calk McCarty 247

Chapter 13 Life in the Badlands Pearl Danniel 265

Endnotes 273

References 285

Index 287

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